Mike:
Hi, Jéanpaul.
I’m happy to have yet another Association of Rhode Island Author (ARIA) to
introduce to my Overlords fan base. As
with the others, we’re going to do an old fashioned interview. Here we go!
Mike: Jéanpaul, please introduce yourself to my
Overlords fans with a little information about you and where you’re from.
Jéanpaul: Thanks, Mike.
I am a native of Scituate, Rhode Island, although my family dragged us
all over the place when we were kids. I
am a novelist, poet, short fiction author, and photographer. A
9-time Pushcart Prize nominee, I’ve been very fortunate to have my work
featured in such varied places as NPR and Columbia Review and Saltsburg
Review. My book of poetry Essendo Morti – Being Dead (Goldfish
Press, 2009), was nominated for the 2010 Griffin Prize in Poetry; and its
follow up, Jazz
(Honest Publishing, 2011), was nominated for both the 2012 Kingsley Tufts
Poetry Prize and the 2012 Griffin Prize in Poetry.
Mike: What
are you working on these days and what’s the current status of that project?
Jéanpaul: I just completed my 26th novel
entitled Midnight City. It is an expose about a young actor who moves
to Hollywood in the early nineties and the reality he faces trying to break
into the movies. Let’s just say it
doesn’t have a Hollywood ending. I just
sent the manuscript to my agent, Jennifer Lyons, who is reading it over as we
speak.
Mike:
Can you tell the audience what inspires you to
write?
Jéanpaul: I have a burning desire to reflect the crazy world
I see around me in my poems and stories.
I’d say my work is very topical, i.e., Bob Dylan meets Ernest Hemingway.
Mike:
What genre do you enjoy
writing the most?
Jéanpaul: I love the challenge in creating a
novel. They are like giant jigsaw puzzles. If one piece is out of place the whole
picture gets skewed. But poetry is my
first love. And it is the genre I’ve had
the most success with (my 25 unpublished novels are a testament to this,
although my last two novels came as close as you can get to be published
without doing so).
Mike: Any upcoming projects we should now about?
Jéanpaul: I’m working on a new group of short stories
entitled The Last Branch Before She Hits
the ground. I’d say the stories are a
cross between H.P. Lovecraft and Anton Chekhov.
Mike:
OK, time for some quick ones, ready? Favorite movie?
Jéanpaul: Pulp Fiction
Mike:
Favorite food or dish to make?
Jéanpaul: Squid salad.
I’ve also been dreaming a lot lately of truffle French fries with
parmesan cheese. You don’t even want to
know what they’ve been saying to me!
Mike:
Favorite place you have ever visited?
Jéanpaul: Lake Lugano, Switzerland—an azure lake
surrounded by 14,000 foot snow-capped mountains. It looks like a surreal dream.
Mike: Favorite music band?
Jéanpaul: Linkin Park
Mike: Favorite book, and no it can’t be one of
yours!
Jéanpaul: Tie: The Great Gatsby & A Movable Feast
Mike: Jéanpaul, thanks for being such a good
sport! Is there anything you would like
to leave my fans with?
Jéanpaul: Yes. Discover
new writers who are off the grid! There
are so many great novelists and writers out there that the mainstream presses
have either ignored or overlooked. The
criteria for a big publisher to want to publish someone now is: is this book definitely
a best seller? That’s a pretty high
bar. There are a lot of novels out there
published by places like Permanent Press, SoHo Press, Black Lawrence Press, and
Dorothy Books that are truly great books, but don’t get any press. Find those authors like Lorrie Moore and
Corrine De Winter and Jesmyn Ward and delve into their books. You’ll never be sorry you did!
Mike: Jéanpaul, thanks for being part of this great blog series. Please
follow the links below to get in touch with Jéanpaul and most importantly, buy
his books!
Jazz, collected poems by Jéanpaul Ferro:
Essendo Morti – Being Dead, collected poems by Jéanpaul
Ferro:
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